Hands on the Stellaris Launchpad

We just got our hands on a Stellaris Launchpad. We had placed an order when the preorder was originally announced, but the marketing folks at TI reached out an offered to send us one a bit sooner and took them up on it. We’ve embedded a quick unboxing video after the break but read on for some info that didn’t make it into that clip.

The look and feel of the board and its packaging are almost exactly the same as the MSP430 version of the Launchpad. But why not? After all it worked so well the first time. This board hosts an ARM Cortex-M4 processor. The two buttons on the bottom are user buttons, the one on the upper right is a reset button. The top of the board is the programmer, with a micro USB port for connectivity. The kit also includes about a 2′ cable for this connection. Next to that jack is a switch that selects a power source. You’ll also notice a USB port to the left, this because the processor includes USB functionality, with a free library available from TI. Power can come from the programmer/debugger USB port, or from this device USB port. There are dual pin headers to either side on the face of the board, and pin sockets on the back which break out pins of the processor. Just below the reset button is a RGB LED, and a clock crystal has also been populated just above the chip.

When plugged in via the programmer’s USB port the PWR LED lights up as does the RGB LED. The firmware that ships on the device fades through a range of colors and the user buttons scroll through a set of predefined colors. The device enumerates as: “Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1cbe:00fd Luminary Micro Inc.” on our machine. But if you connect it via the device USB jack it enumerates as: “Bus 001 Device 015: ID 04e8:689e Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-S5670 [Galaxy Fit]”. Interesting.

We have no idea if there are programming tools for flashing the board using a Linux box, but we’ll be trying to figure it out. If you have some info please share it in the comments.

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49 thoughts on “Hands on the Stellaris Launchpad”

I’ll definitely post everything from programming to debugging (and possibly C startup code, etc) here once it arrives. I ordered 2 at the very hour you made the original post about it so I hope it’s here soon.

While it’s true that the older “Stellaris Evaluation Kits” used on-board FTDI programmers, I wouldn’t be surprised if they cooked up their own for this one. In fact, the chip used in the debug portion of the circuit appears to be another Stellaris ARM! While this may mean it doesn’t work out of the box with open source tools, it might be possible to re-flash the debugger MCU with a flavour of open debugger firmware. Perhaps Versaloon?

Disclaimer: I don’t have one of these boards (yet) so I might be wrong.

I’m more replying to the guy above, but my plan to use this dev board as a general programmer is to desolder the TMS chip and solder wires from the pads to an external header somewhere. That should work, in theory at least.

You can’t use the dev board anymore, but for 15 bucks, who cares. Get another one.

It seems that this ICDI interface is different from the classical ones used on the other stellaris boards.

According to the thread below, TI released the specs for this interface to the openOCD project but according to Spen …it might take some time before
its integrated into openOCD. Thanks Spen for working on it and take your time!

Yes, this is the same information I found. I can confirm that the ICDI support currently in OpenOCD only works with devices using an FTDI interface. The Stellaris Launchpad doesn’t, it has another Cortex-M4 chip which is serving as the programmer (this way TI didn’t have to buy a chip from another manufacturer to make these boards).

Spen mentions that implementation is not as straight forward as he had hoped.

There’s 2 identical M4s on there – the USB interface is the same chip.
There’s a /lot/ of information on the TI website, I haven’t had a chance to dig through it all.
There’s talk of source for flash programmers, the protocol information of bootloaders…
If there’s any way to use both M4s for $4.99 (albeit hard to get to the pins on the second one) then the deal just gets sweeter

Where abouts are you both based? Given they were doing free shipping, I’m wondering if they’re canning non-US sales. (Mine is set to ship 11/9/12 so I hope I don’t have to wait that long only to find they’ve binned it.)

Dear HaD,
I know that time and time again you like to demonstrate your collective lack of knowledge in the electronics realm but this is a new low. Please lift your game. You’re supposed to be a “bunch of hackers” and this is the best you can do with a early delivery? Unboxing and reading out the crap off the box? :/

*intended as constructive criticism whether you read it that way or not. xx

I’d love to see a decent cross platform library at the level of mbed, but open source and supporting Launchpad, mbed, LPCXpresso, STM32F4, etc. Yeah yeah I know about Maple, Wiring etc. I mean more like mbed. Maybe I can port µEZ. Anyone want to help?

Just got mine on the 3rd, ordered on the day it was first posted on here, haven’t gotten around to installing the software yet but just trying the demo and looking at it I’m quite impressed. Looks like it’s got lots of potential.

/opt/ti/ccsv5/eclipse/ccstudio
If connection to target fails, look for messages on the xterm from where
ccstudio is started.

6. To compile and load the project0 to launchpad flash,
Import project0 from Stellarisware/boards/ek-lm4f120xl
Connect the debug usb port to the host computer, using the usb cable provided.
Build the project and
Run->Debug
Run->Free Run

they have raised the price to $12.99.
Morning i saw it was $4.99. Evening i saw it was $12.99. After reading few posts above i got a strong belief that my order will also be cancelled.
Any way if i get it. i will let you know.